Introduce yourself
Hello I’m Lorna Barton-Nicol and I am the President of the West Ealing WI. I work in fundraising for the Children’s Society in the data services team helping the charity engage with its supporters in the best way possible. My job involves a lot of databases, spreadsheets and analysis which is quite dry so it’s great to have a creative outlet in my spare time.
Why did you become a member of the WI?
I first attended a WI meeting when I was living in a small village outside of Huddersfield and their meeting sounded so interesting. When I moved to London to be with my now husband I knew that joining a WI would help me to settle in. The ones near me were all daytime groups and I was able to latch on to 2 women who had already got the ball rolling on setting up an evening group in Ealing. This is how I became the Secretary back in 2011. It was great fun to be part of setting up a WI and I’m so pleased with how well the group is going.
How would you sum up your WI?
I would sum up West Ealing WI as my friends. It’s a great group of women. We meet in the evenings so that working women can attend and we’re often found in the pub and we’re quite an informal group.
Why would you encourage other women to get involved in the WI?
I would encourage women to get involved in the WI because it offers so many different opportunities. It connects you to a network of awesome women and gives you a great way to find out all the different ways that they are so great. It’s incredible who you can get to come and visit a WI when you think that really it’s just a group of friends hanging out. Most of the coolest stuff I’ve done over the past few years I’ve done through being in the WI.
What are you most looking forward to as part of the WI centenary in 2015?
There’s no one thing that I’m looking forward to more than anything with the centenary year – I’m just excited that it gives us an reason to make a bit more noise about all the fantastic things that we get up to!